Grief Recovery Method ®
Overview
How Common is grief?
Grief is the normal and natural emotional response to change or loss of any kind – death, divorce, moving, financial changes, health changes, relationship changes and many more. In fact, the GRM list more than 40 life events that cause us to grieve.
Grief is also the result of unmet hopes, dreams and expectations and the loss of intangible concepts such as safety, trust, security, respect, faith, and hope.
Grief is universal. All of us have experienced grief throughout our lives, as a result of many changes and losses. But we are not well prepared to really handle, manage or recover from the emotional impact which result from these changes and losses.
Find the Correct Tools
Why are we so ill prepared for grief?
Just as our grief is universal, the ineffective ways of dealing with it are also pretty universal. Often, the way we manage our grief is the same – or similar to – the ways our parents and other key figures in our lives have managed theirs… in fact, sometimes for many generations. In addition to parents and key family members, we also learn ineffective tools for dealing with grief from other key adults in our lives as we are growing up – teachers, clergy, coaches, counselors, even the media and tv and music personalities.
Grief is an emotional response – yet often we try to ease our grief by using intellectual tools – we try to “figure it out,” “solve it” or “understand” it. Just as if we were asked to paint a room, but were only given a hammer and a screw driver, we cannot accomplish the task of recovering from grief with inappropriate tools. If given a paint brush, paint and a drop cloth, we could indeed paint a room. Given the proper emotional tools, we can also achieve recovery from our grief. That’s what the Grief Recovery Method provides – the appropriate emotional tools for doing this work.
Step by Step
How does the GRM help?
The GRM is a method – a step by step process – an “action program” – for unlocking and respecting the emotional experience of our grief – both the immediate or presenting grief issues – and those that may have been holding us captive for years. Often, the most recent or presenting loss is actually made more difficult by related experiences from our past which were not recognized or addressed at the time – adding weight to that resulting from the current loss.
Through a defined step-by-step process, the GRM first explores the “old, ineffective tools” we’ve been using, with the belief that it’s hard to learn new tools if we don’t understand why the old ones might not have been effective. Then, the process shifts to the introduction of new tools which can be used across a wide gamut of losses – from persons, to pets, to hopes and dreams and expectations, to those intangible things like trust, safety or faith. At every step the griever is respected, listened to and heard without judgement or analysis, and is supported in identifying and giving voice to the array of emotions that accompany the full extent of the loss. Once the GRM process is completed for one loss, it can be used over and over again, to address other past losses, and to help more quickly address new losses.
Process
What's the process?
The GRM is an action-based program that involves reading and writing assignments as outlined in “The Grief Recovery Handbook, the Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce and Other Losses.”
The GRM is a time-limited program – with a set number of sessions, depending on whether one is working the program alone or in a group. If done in the group format, it is not a “drop in” group, meaning that those who participate are there throughout the entire program, to help build the sense of safety and trust.
The GRM is facilitated by a Grief Recovery Specialist, certified by the Grief Recovery Institute (your’s truly in this case). We are trained to deliver the GRM and have experience in working with a variety of types of loss and people form all walks of life.
The GRM is an evidence-based program, having documented statistically significant improvements in grievers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to grief. More information about the research can be found at https://www.griefrecoverymethod.com/evidence-based.